I HAD worked for a long time with the day laborers. As I started to go home night had already come. It was an inspiring warm night of summer; I chose the longest way, so enchanted was I with the beauty of the evening. In the moonlight the mountains seemed to tremble; from the trees slanted long, black shadows, and the scent of an unknown flower perfumed the air. The voices of nightingales resounded from trees within the forest, out of thickets along the hills, and from the deep grass, insects called.
On a night like this, the gentleness of slumbering nature, the sweet mystery of shadows, pour a warmth of happiness into the heart. A sort of divine unrest took possession of me. Every once in a while I paused and looked with delight upon the bright mist-veiled distance. Dreams of youth came back, long buried desires came to life again, and I longed passionately for something which I was unable clearly to define for myself. The beauty of the summer night had intoxicated me. Across the deep, sweet silence rang out upon a sudden a song, sung by a voice of youth. At first the echo of the mountains brought the song to me, and I could not be sure whether it was a song or an interrupted voice that called. Then it drew nearer and nearer. There was no doubt now but that it was a song. Borne on the clean, soft air it reached me, and the melody was that of an old folk song. I wanted to hear it better, to be near it, and strangely moved, I followed the voice of song.
A tall, young peasant, barefooted, was hastening past. In one hand he held a twig which he moved nimbly to and fro. The round shabby hat rested on the back of his neck, and the night wind played with the hair upon his forehead. He bore his head erect, as if, with his song, he were striving to reach the limpid, air-swept heights.
Faster he walked. I followed him. His song lured me on. There was a longing in his onward leaps and in the words which celebrated love. When he was near the village he changed his song, and the new song was merry and mocking:
“Shove the bolt, the door fling wide,
Soon, sweetheart, I’m by your side.”
Out of the valley the echo came back, and in the echo there was something defiant, fawn-like.
Now the peasant boy left the highway and turned toward the hills. Above, between the fruit trees—one half of it pallid-white from the moonlight,—the other half black with shadows, peeped out a peasant’s home. On the shadowed side, one tiny window shone fiery red from a lamp.
When the peasant reached the foot of the hill, the light was extinguished. A door within the house was heard to open, and a figure slipped across the moonlighted courtyard.
“Ah, ha!” I said to myself, not without envy. “I thought it must be a lover’s rendezvous.” In the meantime he had slowly climbed the hill. A woman’s form came toward him a hundred steps away. From my place of concealment, behind the thick trunk of an old apple tree, I recognized the girl—Jagica, the prettiest peasant girl in the country. A shiver touched me. “She!—And how prim she always appears,” I added between my teeth.
The boy paused beside her but they did not shake hands, nor kiss, nor embrace. They stood and looked and greeted each other in the name of God and the Holy Virgin. He looked about for something to lean against, and seeing a tree stump, propped himself against it with the right half of his body.